Hidden from the Wise-Revealed to Babes

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Hear the word of the Lord Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done
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Because they did not repent Woe to you Chorazin. Woe to you Bethsaida For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon They'd have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes but I say to you it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon the day of judgment than for you and You Capernaum who are exalted to heaven will you be brought down to Hades?
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For if the mighty works which are done in you had been done in Sodom it would have remained until this day But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you
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At that time Jesus answered and said I thank you father Lord of heaven and earth That you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes
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Even so father for so it seemed good in your sight All things have been delivered to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father
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Nor does anyone know the father except the son and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest
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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart You will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light
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Father as we gather in this place in this hour to hear from your word.
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We asked it by your spirit You would be amongst us. We recognize we can do nothing apart from your spirit
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We have come to honor the name of Jesus Christ And so now we ask that you would do what only you can do that You would take your word that you would take your spirit and you would make us more like Jesus All to his honor and glory we pray in Christ's name
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Amen it is an honor to be with you here at Kings Cross.
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I know where I am. I Have been here since Monday.
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It's been a very busy week Some people have managed to avoid me pretty much the entire week, which makes me very sad
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Some people sitting in front row, but anyway We we have definitely provided the
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Canon app with a great deal of content over this past week Prayers if you would as I head home tomorrow,
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I will get home pretty much I've been out almost a full month and it's a long time to be away from home
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But Lord willing we'll be back on Thursday much much work to do yet and It's been a great time while we have been up here prayers for safe travel and you all were praying for some folks
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Just a few moments ago Most of well, I think most of you probably know my daughter summer
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Jaeger She's 21 weeks of pregnant She's had two miscarriages in a row.
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So we've been praying for this little this little guy Who will be named ransom?
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we tried for Thomas Lee Stonewall Jaeger, but she said no and Yeah, we tried but mom gets to say so Anyways, if you'll pray for summer and for that little one
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We're certainly praying that God will deliver a healthy little baby baby boy
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This morning. We are looking at Matthew chapter 11 and I will confess that when you look at this text, we all know all of this we many of us have memorized this entire section, but probably not as a continuing running section
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Because you have at the beginning these woes these judgments proclaimed upon the cities there in Galilee and Then you have what many people have called and I think appropriately the gospel of John in Matthew the language of the
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Relationship of father and son. No one knows the the father, but the son no one knows the son
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But the father that sounds like John 5 or John 8 or John 10 or John 17
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It's it's it's all through the gospel of John We'll look a little bit more at that obviously in just a moment, but you have that kind of language in the middle and then everyone's memorized come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden
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I will give you rest and and The the lightness of his yoke and the burden How do these three fit together?
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Many people will read this section of Matthew and you just sort of just sort of go bumping along and not really seeing the connectedness
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But the reality is Matthew connects all of these Together they are meant to be seen as having some type of underlying theme that connects them all together
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And I think in our day we will see that each one of these sections is very important as we arise each morning and And Have to in in many instances expose ourselves to the news of the day and It just seems that over the past few years every single day you get up you hear something you go
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I just I never thought it could get this bad How can they be how can they even be thinking of such things and yet that is what we face?
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And so hopefully looking through this text will be of an encouragement to us Give us some guidance as to how we can guard our own hearts and be used of the
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Lord As we look at these things I am Just for the sake of pastor
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Doug reading from the New King James version of the Bible And that did make him laugh. So just in the first service, so Then he began to rebuke the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent
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This text has given that we have Chorazin Bethsaida Capernaum This text has taken on more meaning for me to be honest with you
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Since I had the opportunity in 2018 To make my one visit to to the
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Holy Lands. I had sort of resisted going to be honest with you I had heard so many people they would go and they come back and all of a sudden they were super spiritual and And I was less than them because I hadn't seen all these places and all that kind of stuff and and I had heard it
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Was very commercialized which by the way it was No question about it, but there were certain things that I did
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Take away that. I'm very very grateful for One of them was when we we first got to Galilee we went up on a high mountain now
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I'm not sure if it's the same high mountain that is mentioned in Scripture, but there is a very high mountain on the
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Sort of north western side of the Sea of Galilee and You can go up there you can take a whole group up there and you can you can see the entire valley below and you can see the entirety of the lake and when you start looking around I Realize just how small
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Israel really is in fact They've they've built highways to go north and south and in a just a regular car going regular 65 miles per hour
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You can cover that country very very quickly It really was amazing to me, but we had the opportunity of going to Capernaum, which is mentioned right here
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And I did not preach on this section there at Capernaum. I'm not sure that would be really wise but Instead I did
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John 6 why not? I mean that that's the best the best thing to do there but I stood right on the shore of the
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Sea of Galilee there in Capernaum and Stunned me was that's right at the northern part.
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And if you think of the Sea of Galilee, it's pretty much Elongated north -south is much much longer that way than it is east -west
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There is no place When you stand on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, there's no place. You cannot see the far shore
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So when you say at the northern shore, I could see the southern shore now It's not like you could see people on it or something like that You're basically seeing the mountains and stuff down there at this fair distance
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But especially when looking east -west you can see the other shore When I had thought of the
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Sea of Galilee when I was growing up I thought of the Atlantic Ocean or something like that where you just couldn't see to the other side.
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It's a big lake But you can see across it across it and it just stunned me so that when we started visiting these cities for example, we visited
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Migdal and They had only a few years earlier discovered the first century synagogue at Migdal now
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You know Migdal because you know, Mary Magdalene Mary of Migdal. So this would have been her synagogue and of course as this frequently happens in Israel, they were building a hotel and They ran into it.
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And so now the hotel is Doesn't have a first floor in this one section. It's built up above it and goes up Happens all the time a very strange architect architecture in modern
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Israel because anywhere you dig all of a sudden you discover something really Important down there in the earth, but they've uncovered it and and here's there was these this mosaic in the floor and this the like the seat of Moses and and things like that and those were the very rocks that heard
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Jesus teach and preach because it says he went through all of their synagogues and Once you start realizing how close together these little cities were
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Then you understand that when something miraculous happened in in one city
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Believe you me by that evening everybody in all the other cities around northern Galilee knew about it and by the next day everybody all around the entire
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Sea of Galilee knew what had taken place there and The idea of an itinerant walking ministry between these cities makes perfect sense
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Once you get to see it, it's just amazing how small The whole area was and so when you hear these rebukes
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Everyone listening whether they lived in Khorasen or Bethsaida Would have felt the rebuke coming toward them because it was it was one place there was one population
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That was moving around constantly from place to place and so he's done these mighty works
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In his ministry there in Galilee But they did not repent Woe to you
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Khorasen. Woe to you Bethsaida for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre -in -Sidon they have would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes you need to understand
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That would not fit into how to make friends and influence people That was a shot because Tyre -in -Sidon these were watchwords he's going to use
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Tyre -in -Sidon and Sodom and for these Jewish people who go to synagogue and they would come in and There would be up front on the left -hand side you'd have what was called the seat of Moses Jesus talks about it in Matthew chapter 23 and Then next to that and you know, obviously the more upscale the synagogue was the fancier the container would be and the more simple the less but you would have the scrolls of the scriptures and so someone would sit in the seat of Moses and they would take out the scroll and they would read and this was a part of the worship of the people of that day and so they
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They are people who are Hearing the Word of God read to them regularly normal Jewish person, especially a fisherman or someone who's farming or something like that, they would not possess their own scriptures and What we have today in the form of a codex a book very rare in that day
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In fact, some people theorize that was Christians who popularized this because the vast majority of New Testament manuscripts
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Only like six of them have been found in the form of scrolls vast majority are in the codex form and so you wouldn't have access to the scriptures except on that Sabbath service
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Unless you went to the rabbi and asked him to access those things, but they did have the scriptures in that form
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Now we have our smartphones and tablets and Bibles We have personal access
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It's very rare for Christians to realize how blessed we are in Comparison to people all the way up through the time of the
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Reformation Who simply only had access that thing is the scriptures as they were read to us?
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but Tyre and Sidon and Sodom they didn't have the scriptures and They were a watchword amongst these people and you see the attitude
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These people in the synagogues with so much light from the scriptures the
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Son of God is working miracles amongst them and preaching words of life to them and They're hard -hearted they're not repenting and Yet they have the attitude
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Tyre and Sidon Sodom Those are evil people.
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We're not like them. We don't have any idols in our synagogues We don't do the things that that they did in Sodom.
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We don't have the worship that happened in Tyre and Sidon How could you even dare to make such a grossly?
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unfair comparison and the reality is Jesus says
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I say to you it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you why?
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Had they done the things that Tyre and Sidon no Sodom no
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The issue was the light that they had The issue was the very
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Son of God was amongst them and he wasn't just preaching. He was working mighty miracles
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There were lepers Who were healed there were the dead had been raised people had received sight and it says they weren't repenting
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Well, what did they really have to repent of I mean how much trouble can you get into in a Jewish city along the
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Sea? Of Galilee everybody knows everybody else, you know, if you're sneaking off to some pagan shrine someplace
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Everyone's gonna know that I mean really come on wasn't Jesus being just a little bit hard on them
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But this is where we need to understand that this judgment that is spoken of here will be based upon the amount of light
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How clearly did you know what God's will was And these people knew
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People in Tyre and Sidon walked in darkness. There were no prophets sent to them Sodom darkness
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It'll be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon Capernaum. There's a synagogue there and it was a pretty nice one.
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It's pretty nice one They thought they were to be exalted to heaven. They'll be brought down to Hades to the place of death
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For if the mighty works which are done and you have been done in Sodom it would have remained until this day
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But I say to you that it should be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you
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We need to hear these words First of all, because if you think about Western culture today
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You think about our own land If you've gone up to Massachusetts I had the opportunity of going up and sort of doing a little bit of a tour in some of the places where Jonathan Edwards ministered
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I Don't know if you've ever seen his sermon notes astonishing ever seen the sermon notes I I cannot figure this out.
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I don't even know how they did this back in that time period But I can guarantee you one of the reasons
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I use an iPad is because the fonts on this thing are huge. I Once your eyes get past and I'm well past half a century
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It's tough to see Jonathan Edwards sermon notes where I would estimate about 1 .5
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font and He hand wrote them. I Don't I cannot read them you
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I had to use a magnifying glass and that was 20 years ago. I still had decent eyes So we can go to places in our own nation.
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We're such light Such truth such clarity and published abroad it wasn't like it was just well, that was this one certain one all over the place
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But I've gone I've spent much time overseas at least up until 2020 I did and For example in 2019
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I spent about two months in London. It's beautiful place but you walk the streets and There are testimonies to the gospel everywhere and they're inscribed in stone
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There are statues and men's names and cathedrals and they're all there and yet there's a gay pride
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March going on outside and they cannot help but walk past Marble that has the truths of Christ inscribed on it the light that was once there
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Far more than was ever to be had in Tyre and Sidon or Capernaum and Really when you think about having the entirety of Scripture in Capernaum or crazed in Bethsaida Tremendous light and yet there's been sin against it.
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What would Jesus say? To the United Kingdom, what would Jesus say to us? Now we all agree on that we're all like, oh, yeah the depravity today the oh the things that are going on It's just how can this be?
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But we have to be careful one thing We have to be careful the attitude these people have because you see they had light and They in that light recognized
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Tyre and Sidon pagan worship Sodom Oh direct rebelling against God God's justice came upon them, but they wouldn't repent
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You Can recognize the truth of God's judgment while you stand under it if your heart is hard If you have the attitude of the
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Pharisees, it isn't interesting Jesus isn't talking here about what's gonna happen to Jerusalem. That's upcoming
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That's that's chapter 23 He's talking about the people who probably would have thought well, we're the
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Amha adats We're the people of the land those people up there in Jerusalem. They look down on us as is But we go to synagogue and we don't have any pagan temples here we're doing pretty good and Jesus says it'll be more tolerable for those people who did much worse acts
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Because you have the light and yet you are not repentant We have to be careful when we see such depravity around us.
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It is easy for us to wrap our our robes of righteousness around ourselves and become hardened
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Hardened to when the Lord speaks to our sin the coldness of our heart
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It's real easy when you're going. Oh, yeah, just judgment over there But you have to ask the question of yourself as well think about those things but then we
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Notice that in verse 25. There is a specific clear chronological connector at that time
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So at the time of the pronunciation of the judgment at the time when
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Jesus is saying Hard things to people that are probably not going to be overly happy with the things that he's saying at that time
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Jesus answered and said some translations don't even bother putting answered in because like answered no one was talking to him
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But the idea is it's connecting it back. He's answering in regards to the statement of that judgment
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At that time Jesus answered and said I thank you father Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things and the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes even so father for so it seemed good in your sight and so here is a a prayer of the same level of personal interaction that you you see in John chapter 17
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I I Thank you father Lord of heaven and earth
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That you have hidden these things. That's why you have to have answered in there these things
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Well, what are these things? Well this issue of judgment and God has
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God has a purpose in raising up one nation destroying another nation bringing his judgment to bear quickly or showing tremendous patience over time
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God has a will that he is accomplishing in this world and Jesus is well aware of it and he thanks the father that he has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and Has revealed them to babes so obviously
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Speaking of wise and prudent does not mean these people have godly wisdom Godly prudence, but they think that they are wise they think that they are prudent
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They have arrogance in their hearts and Instead there is a revelation to babes
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To those the world looks down upon You have hidden these things.
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God's active God's doing this and He's doing it because it's pleasing even so father for so it seemed good in your sight
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We live in a day where the idea of what is good in the sight of God is almost irrelevant
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Certainly amongst our fellow citizens, but even so often in the church How often do you hear people saying?
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Well, we just we just need to make make sure that whatever we do that it's pleasing in his sight That we are pleasing to him that it's good in his sight
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So often it's well that it's gonna promote our plans and our comfort and whatever else it may be
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Even so father for so it seemed good in your sight and for a truly
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Submissive heart as Long as it is good in God's sight that should be enough for us
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That should be enough for us but I'll be honest with you an entire lifetime of Christian Experience can go by before that's really
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How we respond to every difficulty in our lives that's sanctification That's maturity
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That's walking with Christ So it seemed good in your sight God has hidden these things.
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We are dependent upon God's revelation of these things. His judgment is just and good and Then we have like I said frequently called the gospel of John and Matthew So right in the midst of saying this is what
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God's doing it's up to God to reveal these things all Things have been delivered to me by my father and No one knows the
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Son except the Father Now doesn't this sort of remind you of what we're gonna hear at the end.
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We know the end of the book We've we we went and read ahead. And so we we know what happens at the end of the book
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Jesus is victorious. He's raised from the dead and he says all
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Authority has been given to me in heaven and earth therefore go Now we know about that We we know how modern
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Evangelicals have disconnected the authority of Jesus in heaven and on earth from going and doing we get it
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But here before the resurrection Jesus says all things have been delivered to me by my father now.
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I have I have some bad news for you. I have taught in many
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Christian circles over the years. I've taught overseas I've taught here in the United States I'm currently teaching
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Seminary just this year became professor of church history and apologetics at Grace Bible Theologic Seminary.
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So I I've done a little bit of teaching over the years and I can tell you that if you believe that we are reading from the
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Word of God So when you respond, you know, this is the Word of the Lord Yes, it is amen if you really do believe that you are in the minority of People who call themselves
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Christians around the world Because in Bible colleges and seminaries
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English -speaking world and outside the English -speaking world the idea that this is a consistent divine revelation that it's as Jesus put it
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God speaking is a minority perspective And when you go to those schools, they will tell you that well, you know, you have your synoptic gospels
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You've got mark and he's the first one and then Luke and Matthew took mark and they edited him and they added stuff and they took stuff out and and and they're they're embellishing and they're they're making a bigger
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Jesus and Then John, oh my goodness John John was on vacation someplace.
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He was just so far out there. I mean In fact in the 1870s if you went over to Germany to get a real degree
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You would have been taught that the Gospel of John was written around 8170
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Yeah about about 170 years after the birth of Jesus about 140 years after his his death and resurrection
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And they would have told you that was the assured results of scholarship you see Why?
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Well because the Jesus of John is so different than the Jesus of Mark we're told I Mean look at look at the
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Jesus of John In the beginning was the Word and where is with God and the Word was God and the end of John you you know
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My Lord and my God and and the I am sayings of Jesus and oh, obviously John that there's has to have been enough time for this this evolution to take place where Jesus can
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Go from being the lowly Jesus of Mark to the exalted Jesus of John by the way
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Don't let anyone get away with that just just read just read Mark chapter 14 a
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Jesus trial and watches Jesus brings together Daniel 9 and Well the language of Daniel 7 and 9
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But the the prophecy of Daniel with Psalm 110 and applies it to himself and even the high priest goes you've heard the blasphemy
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What further need do we have of? Testimony so very very clearly you have numerous passages in the gospel of Mark that reveal to us who
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Jesus is But the point is they would look at something like this and would say Jesus never said stuff like that that came later on now
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It's really fascinating to me just real quickly, and I didn't mention this in the other service So you got you guys are getting a little extra something
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That I think it's just fantastic that the what's probably the earliest fragment of the New Testament that has ever been discovered so far it's called p52 and It's from around 125
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AD. It might be first century, but around 125 AD is the normal guess and It's fascinating to me what that is from It is a portion.
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It's a little credit card piece about yay big and so it's so you can't really tell much from it
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Other than well here was the gospel of John a long long time ago But where's it from? It's gospel of John chapter 18 verses 31 34 on one side 37 38 on the back side which is
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Jesus discussion with Pilate about what is truth and Just that one discovery caused shelves full of Advanced German scholarship to be chucked in the trash
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Because you can't have a copy of John written 50 years before Before it was supposedly first authored in which they had come to the conclusion.
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That was the case so I think it's fascinating that that very often history will will trash the
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Unbelieving theories that people would present to us but here is Jesus in Matthew and what this tells us is the reason you don't have as much of the
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Language that you have in John where John chapter 17 or John chapter 8 the reason you do not have all of that in Matthew Mark and Luke with the same regularity is
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Because of the audience they're writing to and the purpose that they are using to order what they're putting in their
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Gospels Once you get to John John has a purpose of revealing to us
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I've theorized and it's just a theory when we get to heaven we can find out I've theorized that it's due to the fact that if John is writing later that Matthew Mark and Luke which
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I think are much earlier than many people think that they are that many of the people that were Involved were still alive And once you get to John John can now write
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John maybe is no longer in The land of Israel, maybe he's writes this when he's in Ephesus or something like that So he can now we reveal more stuff than could have been revealed initially
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Maybe that's why it has the different different flavor to it But the point is Matthew 11 tells us yes
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Jesus was saying these types of things because this is exactly what you have in John all things have been delivered to me by my father
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That is a claimed deity. Can you imagine Isaiah saying this? Can you imagine
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Isaiah say all things have been delivered to me by Yahweh? No, of course not and to use this intimate language my father
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That's it the Jews understood that remember John chapter 5 calling God his own father what making himself equal with God All things have been delivered to be my father and no one knows the son except the father
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Can you imagine saying I am such a grand person? I am so great that the only one who truly knows me is
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God Anybody stands up in front of you and speaks like that you need to rush the pulpit
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Protect the pulpit Nor does anyone know the father except the son
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So the son is this grand person and the father we know is
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God himself and yet the son can reveal the father perfectly He's the only way of knowing the father what do you have to be to be the perfect revelation of a divine person a divine person yourself and Yet he is the means of truly knowing the father nor does anyone know the father except the son and The one to whom the son wills to reveal him true knowledge of God the father is not brought about by our philosophical speculations or Our climbing the high mountains of human insight.
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There's one way to know This is not the inclusive pluralism of the world
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This is the exclusivity That so offends the world Jesus says if you're gonna know the father you're gonna know him through me
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Is this not sort of like John again? What is what does Jesus say? No one comes to the father, but by me and there it is
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You can have true knowledge of the father But you will have that true knowledge only through the sons
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Willing to reveal him to you What was the big offense in John chapter 6
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You're not going to know God unless he draws you to me and I'm the only way to the father here It is all again.
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This is all the same themes being run together in one brief statement But then you have verse 28 and you might go
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How do I how do I fit this together? Because here you have
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Jesus first addressing the father Then he teaches about the relationship of himself to the father and his being the one that reveals the father in verse 27 and Then 28 you now have the call
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Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest and let's be honest reformed folks sometimes struggle here and The accusation is made.
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You're you're you're not you're not being consistent on the one hand You've just had
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Jesus thanking God the father the hide things from people and Now you've had the statement that you can't come to know the father unless the son wills to reveal him.
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So it's all of God So why are you out on the street corner preaching?
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Why are you trying to reach these people? I? Mean I I was I was speaking down in southern,
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Utah as part of this trip coming up here and Had a great night at Southern, Utah University I had a hundred people show up for a talk on the
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Trinity which in southern, Utah is unheard of just absolutely unheard of and Got to meet people that that our ministry over the years had brought out of Mormonism so I was walking on air when
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I left and I get in my truck and I start getting messages because I'd had my phone turned off and start getting messages and it was the first night that Apology was going out to the
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Easter pageant in Mason. I started going out the Easter pageant Mesa in 1983 Most there are a few of you in this room that weren't around in 1983
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And I start getting these messages and I get a picture and it's my granddaughter
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Clementine witnessing to a Mormon cop in Mesa and It all sudden hit me
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She's only 13 years younger than I was when I started doing that and that's my granddaughter That'll make you start feeling really old and also rejoicing
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That here we are and there's still people who need to know these things so we are we're evangelistic people
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In fact, there are certain people in Moscow. I hate to tell you this but There are some people in Moscow that don't really appreciate you a whole lot.
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I'm just There's a I think there's a cafe right down on the corner there.
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It's got a really funny flag out front I'm not sure that you ought to go in there. Just just at least if you know, everybody knows who you are
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Just an outsider's thought We're known for being evangelistic we make the proclamation how is that consistent?
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Well, here's Jesus Jesus knows there is a divine decree. Jesus is that the father's pleased to hide things and bring judgment and Yet he then says come to me all you who labor and a heavy laden and I will give you rest
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Is there an inconsistency? Do we just simply go? Oh, well, you know, it's there in the Bible. I'll just go with it
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Well, I don't think there's any inconsistency. I mean you should go with it in the Bible one way or the other But I don't think
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Jesus was being inconsistent because notice what he says come to me Who is he saying come to me all you who think you're wise and prudent come to me all you who are unrepentant
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He says come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest And you and I both know
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Because we hopefully you've experienced it in your life not just for yourself, but in speaking to others
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We are dependent upon the Spirit of God to open people's hearts and minds to recognize
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That they are heavy laden We can't help but think of Pilgrim's Progress here, right?
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At least you know the old church. I was that for many many years I joked that we had 28 books of the
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New Testament and we just might as well bind Pilgrim's Progress after Revelation get over with It was cited more often than anything else was and if you know
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Pilgrim's Progress you know what you're thinking about here that great burden on Pilgrim's back and it and it rolls off and rolls away
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Not because of anything he could do that requires this the work of the
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Spirit the person who knows that they are Laboring and have a heavy burden upon them.
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They've come to know that by the work of the Spirit of God And when I think of what this world says to people today, you are a worthless accident
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The universe doesn't care you're here it wants to get rid of you and eventually it will and that's gonna be it
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That's the that's the hope of What is being taught to our children today?
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That's a burden and When you preach the gospel When you preach
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God's truth and people see themselves in the light of what God's revelation is in the light of the resurrection of Christ also, they find out they are burdened and they cannot do anything about it and We're the ones that we point to Jesus go to Jesus go to him
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Take his yoke upon you. Yes, there is a yoke. Did you take upon you? You're not doing this just simply to get one leg lengthened to the length of the other leg and get brighter teeth or no
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This isn't self -improvement But take his yoke upon you and learn from him
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Learn from him. He is gentle and lowly in heart. You'll find rest for your souls
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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light That's the call that we we have a hope for anyone no matter what their situation
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Jesus has come to me Is that a contradiction? No We are used of God as the means to deliver the message the message of hope the message of rest the message of peace and So we rejoice to do so knowing looking back in the passage
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God's judgment is coming and And we rejoice in that which pleases the
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Father we rejoice the judgment will come but we never want to be like the Pharisees and Not recognize that we were rescued from that judgment by grace and grace alone.
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That's that's always has to be there or We will become like the
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Pharisees. We don't want to do that and in the center We have a perfect revelation of the
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Father the one Who has all authority in heaven and earth is the one sending us
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The message we have for the world is an authoritative message Can never be taken away
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So here in Matthew the gospel of John in Matthew. All that means is
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The message Jesus preached was consistent It's been preserved for us and it's powerful because I have met so many people
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Who can testify they heard Jesus say come to me they came and they lost that burden and they rejoice in the yoke that they now wear today for it is indeed light and You are here today because you want to learn from him learn from his word
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That yearning only comes from the work of the Spirit of God amongst us So indeed, let us pray and thank
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God for what he's done amongst us Our Heavenly Father We do thank you for your scriptures.
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We do thank you for these words that were spoken so long ago that you have preserved for us and given to us and father we know that The large majority of those in this room have come to Jesus that burden of sin has been removed and we rejoice
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To bear his yoke for it is indeed light and we found rest for our souls
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But Lord if there be any amongst us Some who've just come to hear May you by your spirit draw your people unto yourself reveal the glory of Jesus Christ May your arm be powerful and bring about spiritual life and if there be any here who've been playing at religion
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Or that they would realize What it really requires to know
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Jesus to trust solely in him Father we just pray that as we have looked to your word
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Lord that you've been glorified in this coming week. We will be better servants of yours May the name of Christ be magnified and his gospel be proclaimed
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We pray in Christ's name Amen and now as our
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Lord Jesus taught us to pray All who are baptized in the name of the triune
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God who are not under lawful church discipline are most welcome to partake of this Meal with us in 1st
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Corinthians 5 7 and 8 it says Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us
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Therefore let us keep the feast Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
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Christ comes to stand in our place To stand between us and the angel of death
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His blood marks our doors Cleansing our hearts and consciences from all our evil deeds
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So that when the destroyer comes when the accuser comes he comes looking for guilt
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He comes looking to accuse us of our lust of our envy of our anger of our critical spirits our harsh words
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But when he comes to our houses The blood has been applied to us and even though we know we've sinned and even though the destroyer
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Knows we have sinned we are under the blood and we are judicially reckoned to have already died
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And so the sin has already been paid for washed away Completely gone and so the destroyer has no power over us
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Part of the Passover was the feast of unleavened bread The Israelites would get rid of the leaven of Egypt and we do the same thing by getting rid of the leaven of the world around us starting brand new dough
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We're to get rid of the malice the rid of the leaven of malice and wickedness in particular
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And have sincerity and truth in our hearts instead these two things together is the difference between justification and sanctification in your justification
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You've been judicially you've judicially died and your sins are no more and the destroyer has nothing on you
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You're judicially legally innocent, but in terms of your sanctification There's still malice and wickedness in your flesh that you need to get rid of constantly
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Sanctification is becoming that holiness that the blood of Christ declares you to be and Christ is both
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Christ is our righteousness and Christ is our holiness We don't come here week after week because our righteousness wears out or because our holiness is somehow faded
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No, Christ never wears out and Christ never fades But we wear out and our faith sometimes feels like it's fading So we gather here to remember and to remind one another that Christ is our
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Passover Christ was sacrificed for us our sins are taken Christ is taking us out of Egypt Freeing us from every
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Pharaoh and taking us to the promised land of his blessing That land is heaven certainly, but it is also homes of blessing
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Families of blessing communities of blessing cities and nations of blessing because Christ is the fount of Every blessing so come and welcome to Jesus Christ and the night which he was betrayed
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Jesus took bread and gave. Thanks So let's give thanks together Our God and Father we praise you for Jesus who you sent we thank you father that he came to give rest to our souls
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So father Thank you that the burden has rolled away that you have given us in its place the light yoke of learning from Christ We praise you and we thank you in Jesus name and amen
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So why was it going to be better in? Sodom why was it going to be better entire inside and then in the cities of?
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The Gentile this the cities of Galilee. Why was it going to be better was because Fundamentally they they knew they had burdens
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But those Jews didn't think they had burdens didn't think they needed help with those burdens
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But Jesus came for those who know that they need to be relieved of those
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Burdens, that's the difference. That's the difference. That's what Jesus came for. He didn't come for the well
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He didn't come for the healthy he came for the sick He came for those who needed to be relieved of all that burden so is that you
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Is that you you know, you have burdens, you know, you need this you need to lay it down You need to let you need to lay those down and you need to give them to Christ He came to take them and he came as the perfect son of the father to take them and make you whole
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So receive the blessing of God in Christ the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ The love of God the
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Father and the fellowship of God the Holy Spirit be with you now and remain in your hearts always